Why We Fall for the Fairy Tale of "The Bachelor" on ABC

The pilot Jake has flown through this season's bachelor already and the folks over at ABC have done a excellent job of editing out all of his imperfections so that the whole country believes he is the perfect guy. A guy who will when married, will throw his dirty socks into the hamper every time, will never leave the toilet seat up and will never look at another woman while in your company. He will bring you roses every Valentine's Day and your birthday, plan surprise dates to whisk you off to exciting places on the weekends, since he does fly his own plane. He will make you breakfast in bed, treasure you, make your dreams his dreams. Support everything you do, take out the trash every night, never play video games or go out drinking with the guys. He will just stay home and enjoy watching reality shows with you when you have free time together. He is all about family. He will be the greatest dad, picture perfect; you can just see him now with sippy cups and cheerios at the park right? He will love no other woman for the rest of his life and live happily ever after.

That's what I as a viewer of the Bachelor would like the world to be like, of course. We will forever wait for another Trista & Ryan connection. (I have to admit, I wanted her to pick Charlie, but I have an aversion to nice guys who are lovesick puppies, so don't mind me) I have watched almost every season, but I even followed the one or two I missed even, but last year's The Bachelor did me a great service. It gave me a wake-up call. I am not sure how many people were rooting for each girl, but what mattered was that he let me down. After choosing Melissa originally, I was ecstatic and ran around the house yelling to my husband "someone finally picked the person I wanted!!" See every year no matter what, I always root for the one they don't pick. Up until last year, I was 100% wrong in my choices. It got frustrating! Of course this isn't my life and it's not up to me to live with, fall in love with or marry any of those people. But I still want to see good people fall in love, find someone, and I enjoy being happy for them, and when it's the "wrong" girl for them, or in my mind, the girl or guy doesn't deserve such a great mate because of something we see on this side of the camera, than I root against them. I think we all do that, that's why we watch. So when he picked my favorite girl, from the start might I add, I was so thrilled for her, to have gotten a good guy for once, because I know they do exist. Then maybe 5 minutes later the next show comes on and he breaks her heart and changes his mind and goes back to the other girl he didn't choose, effectively breaking the viewing audience's hearts too.

I felt hurt and betrayal and I wasn't even involved in this at all. I felt angry for her and I felt dumb. Dumb for believing in the fairy tale that ABC had been spinning and editing for me. I felt like my head was in the clouds and I got caught with my rose colored glasses on while trying on a wedding dress while I was still single kind of dumb. I felt like I let myself be vulnerable just like you do when you were 15 and gave your heart to someone with every drop of trust you had and got it back in 137 pieces and learned never ever to love like that again. (And you never do, you know) I snapped back into my own "reality" and realized that The Bachelor didn't just have these handsome, rich, smart, loving, caring, faithful, sweet, family oriented guys because they scoured the earth for the last few amazing guys on earth. They just made us believe in the fairy tale that we were taught as little girls, once again. That these guys in their suits were just like the men we are married to in their sweats and T-shirts on a Saturday afternoon. All the Bachelor's mow the lawn and go out with the guys, play poker, had arguments with their girlfriends and I know you can't believe it ladies, but I am willing to bet that every Bachelor at one time or another has been a jerk, has lied, has been thoughtless, selfish, inconsiderate, has watched football when you wanted to spend time with him, and some of them have been unfaithful to past girlfriends. Now that is reality. Why it took me like 7 years to realize this, is just a testimony to the hard core romantic I am. I always want to believe in that amazing love story that is unique and special beyond normal everyday love stories.

Even though I have watched the Bachelor: On the wings of love this season, I tried to swear off the Bachelor after Jason, I promised I wouldn't watch it again, because it wasn't real. But it turns out, it was real. Jason wasn't the picture perfect sweet angelic man we dreamed him up to be. He is a regular guy who eats Doritos and get's crumbs all over his shirt and leaves dirty dishes in the sink for you to wash every day. That is why everyone was so angry with him, because we had him painted as a "prince" in a fairy tale, and prince's do their dishes, they don't have beer belly's to collect Dorito crumbs and when the prince takes his socks off his perfectly manicured feet at night he folds them up and immediately put them into the neat hamper next to his side of the bed and bids you a fond goodnight.